Healthy eating is not about strict dietary limitations, staying unrealistically thin, or depriving yourself of the foods you love. Rather, it’s about feeling great, having more energy, and stabilizing your mood. If you feel overwhelmed by all the conflicting nutrition and diet advice out there, you’re not alone. It seems that for every expert who tells you a certain food is good for you, you’ll find another saying exactly the opposite. But by using these simple tips, you can cut through the confusion and learn how to create a tasty, varied, and healthy diet.

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Sweet potatoes also form the base of an intriguing side dish at Arrogant Swine — an all-pork BBQ joint in Bushwick, Brooklyn. They’re mashed and pressed into waffles, flavored with walnuts, bourbon and maple — the ultimate sweet counterpoint to salty, fatty hunks of long-sweet-potato-friessmoked pig.

Classic summer Clam Roasts are often associated with the salt water-kissed shores of New England, but did you know that the dish was largely influenced by immigrant Portuguese fisherman? No wonder the briny shellfish, red potatoes and ears of corn are so often augmented by hunks of juicy Linguica sausage, or spicy Chorizo!

While we simply couldn’t imagine Thanksgiving without turkey, we don’t think to eat it that often the other 364 days of the year. Sure, turkey is a popular cold cut in sandwiches and salads, as well as a viable burger substitute for non red meat eaters, but there aren’t a ton of memorable turkey dishes. That’s why we’ve rounded up a number of notable exceptions, that truly take the under-appreciated protein to the next level, from the classic Turkey Chili at Empire Diner to the exotic Turkey Ramen at Talde.

The holiday gift-giving season can be undoubtedly stressful, but shopping for your food-obsessed friends doesn’t have to be. That’s because there are so many awesome, edible presents on the market nowadays, sure to please even the most discerning epicureans. From an elite collection of whiskeys to a cookbook all about, well, cookbooks!

So lets get this out of the way first — Sweet Potatoes are not the same thing as Yams. In fact, they’re from two entirely different plant families. And as opposed to sweet potatoes, yams are dry, highly starchy and have white-colored flesh. They’re also usually larger than sweet potatoes, weighing in at three to eight pounds each. But if you insist on continuing to refer to that classic Thanksgiving dish as “candied yams,” well, who are we to argue?